(Written May, 2007)

“Mama Deborah, how many children you have?” “I never had any children.” “Oh! Sorry!”

That conversation took place time and time again in Lui. People were always curious about my life in America but I suspect questioning how many children I had revealed more about the Sudanese people than my answers did about me. They didn’t understand how my husband would permit me to travel so far away from him. That he was home and looking out for his father was beyond their comprehension especially since there were no daughters at home to help him out. Admittedly, Ron took on a great many more responsibilities while I was gone but I never doubted he would manage nor did he. Read the rest of this entry »

(Written March, 2007)

The shining sliver of the moon hanging low in the western sky was a promise to all of us in Lui. It meant that those long, dark nights of the new moon were over and for the next few days the nights would be bright. I remember after the first new moon seeing that sliver like a baby’s nail hanging there and thinking how the creation story said, “God made the two great lights, the greater one to govern the day, and the lesser one to govern the night; and he made the stars.” The lesser light, I thought, was surely the greater light as the sun blazed down on us relentlessly while the moon gave us only the cool light that showed us the way in the darkness. I would ask John, the young man who took care of me, when the light would return and he would tell me, “In a day or two,” and sure enough, the next night there it would be. Others may have marked time by days but I marked time by the moon. Read the rest of this entry »

(Written February, 2007)

I stood in the bathing room of the Lui Cathedral Guest House looking down at my feet. I was wearing some old red rubber shower shoes that had fallen apart in the Sudanese heat and were now held together with green camouflage duct tape. I washed my feet twice each day with soap and water but nothing worked. For a time I fantasized about arriving in London and going immediately to have a pedicure but now I was certain I would never show anyone my feet again. As I stared down at them I wondered if they would ever again approach their normal color. I longed to put the basin of water on the floor of the bathing house and stand in it but, by then, I knew that people would come in the late evening to look for bath water I had left so I tried not to dirty the water too much. Read the rest of this entry »

(Written January, 2007)

“In the land where all are blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

At a conference held in Lui, one of the presenters used this saying as an example of how the priests and deacons would be seen as leaders in their communities in situations related to more than religion and faith. Abraham was making the point that these leaders of the church were more educated than their parishioners and would be looked to for all kinds of help. I saw a young priest frown and furrow his brow at this idea but I was soon distracted by the next topic and forgot about it. Read the rest of this entry »